The Paddymelon.

Weeding, weeding, weeding. Oh how I love weeding.
NOT!
Today we had to weed watermelon runs, a seemingly easy, yet horribly monotonous job from the pits of hell!!
Basically, what you have to do is take a 'run' each (a metre wide, 250m long, garden bed of dirt, slightly raised with a 'gutter' either side of it the same size as tire tracks) and walk along inspecting each hole ( a hole per metre, most with a baby watermelon plant, some not) in the plastic that lines the bed and look for weeds (any sized, even one miniscule leaf) and pull them out.
If you have a choice between this job and death... well I'll let you decide but you can probably guess what my strong suggestion would be.
This was not the first time we had done this, so this time I was thinking so very hard of ways to improve the job.
First I was trying to convince Jason to sing to us, and he wouldnt so I was singing to him "Sing us a song, your the weeding man, sing us a song right now, for we're all in the mood for a melody, to help the time pass along". And then I was coming up with other songs "I like to weed it, weed it" and they were getting lamer and lamer so I moved on...
My next stop was praying the alphabet. Ever heard of this? Its great if you are doing something that takes no brain space for extensive lengths of time eg, driving or labour work. All you basically do is go throught the alphabet and pray for the first person that comes to your mind that starts with that letter.
But amoungst my trek along the alphabet I got horribly sidetracked, as I do, I got to thinking about paddymelons.
[If you dont know what a paddymelon is- it is a vine plant that produces melons of the weed variety and it is very decieving.]
When we were weeding we had to watch out for the sprouts of these plants and pull them out too. they look almost identicle to the watermelon plants, so you need to study them well. Only after studying the watermelon plants (the good plant, the one we want to leave in the ground) and getting advice from our boss (who knows exactly the good from the bad), can we see the difference in the paddymelon plant and spot them to pull out. Once you get used to recognising them, and checking back on what the watermelon plant looks like, you get pretty good at spotting them- all sizes and hiding amoungst the good plants- and quickly pinching them and ripping them out.

It got me thinking about sin, and how its our paddymelon. It grows, even though we dont plant it, and it takes away all the strength from the good. It hides amoungst the good qualities, and unless we regulary study the guide for what a good 'plant' is, you wont easily recognise the bad one! But when you focus on talking to the author who knows the good from bad, and read his guide, studying it well- you get really good at recognising the bad and quickly ripping it out!

Even though it took me a long way to get to the point (sorry, I like talking! ), I thought I would let you in on my mind a little, and share this thought. I hope it provokes something in you...